posted at 7:13 am on March 6, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

Given the escalating protests over military recruitment, it seems inevitable that people would bomb those who seek to protect the nation and fight our enemies. This morning, unknown attackers bombed a Times Square military recruitment office. Thankfully, the office and the building that housed it was closed at the time of attack:

An explosive device damaged a military recruiting station in Times Square early Thursday, and police blocked off the area to investigate.

The explosive device caused minor damage, and no one was injured, police said. The explosion shattered a glass entryway. …

Witnesses staying at a hotel in the area said they heard a “big bang” and could feel the building shake. A large plume of smoke was also visible after the explosion, they said.

Melanie Morgan just wrote about the escalating attacks on military recruiters a week ago. She lists several cities where recruitment centers have been attacked in varying degrees, usually limited to vandalism and threats of violence. These operations have not hurt military recruiting at all. Michelle wrote about this two years ago (and many times since), and quite obviously the attackers have grown frustrated that they haven’t frightened off enough people to slow down the flow of recruits.

Now the movement has decided to morph into domestic terrorism. Of course, the people responsible will claim that they bombed the office during the night to keep anyone from being hurt. That’s exactly the same kind of rationalization that people like the Weather Underground and the SLA used at first, anyway — that terrorism was justified by their politics. In fact, a few like William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn still claim that.

And what exactly are the politics behind this? The US does not have a draft any longer. The only people joining the military are those who volunteer to do so. The Code Pink protesters who throw paint, rocks, and the unknown terrorists who throw bombs want to disarm the nation while it’s under attack by radical jihadists, and at the same time want to stop young men and women from exercising their own choices. Since the Code Pink contingent and the nutcases who throw bombs can’t possibly win through the democratic process, they want to engage in intimidation — and now terrorism — to frighten people into acquiescence.

When this fails to achieve their goals, expect bombs to find human targets.

UPDATE: It didn’t take long for the inevitable conspiracy-theory mavens to appear on Daily Kos. Diarist “antirove” claims that this could just be a conservative plot to make the Left look bad:

It’s nothng [sic] new for the right to CAUSE or INCITE the violence, or to trigger arranged mob responses, and make sure it all gets pinned on the Left. And the right seems to be able to get the FBI and law enforcement to do this for them as well. Anarchy, chaos, property damage, physical harm, mayhem, murder, militarized police with massive crowd control equipment, are all ‘options’ the right are eager to use to shut down any potentially energizing movement.

I don’t think the Left needs much help in making themselves look like nutters, and “antirove” him/herself is Exhibit A.

UPDATE II: Bob Owens has some analysis from the photographs of the blast. He’s not sure whether this fits the profile of an anti-war activist attack.

UPDATE III: Police now say that the bomb was “roughly similar” to two other bombings in NYC, at the Mexican and British consulates. They have some clear video of the incident as well:

Officials said that in today’s attack, a man bundled in a gray hooded jacket or sweatshirt and wearing a backpack was seen riding a bicycle around the recruiting station and acting suspiciously moments before the explosion. Video footage from a surveillance camera showed a bicyclist dismounting, approaching the recruitment center, then returning to the bike and riding away before the explosion occurs.

Interesting. It fits closer to Bob Owen’s analysis. And I’ll say this much — if so, then my original post jumped to conclusions. The anti-war protesters have turned to intimidation and vandalism, and if unchecked will proceed to violence. However, this may not have had anything to do with the anti-war movement, and I should have been a little more circumspect about that this morning.

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